


Mae and the Fine Distraction

by Isteskunst



Category: Demon's Lexicon - Sarah Rees Brennan
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-17
Updated: 2012-02-17
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:51:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isteskunst/pseuds/Isteskunst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mae finds something unexpected in a dark alley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mae and the Fine Distraction

**Author's Note:**

> a drabble I wrote for an LJ prompt I have long since forgotten

Mae should’ve known better but, well, she didn’t.

For whatever reason, Mae lacked that instinct that other people seemed to have, that instinct that said _don’t go check on the ominous noise in the darkness by yourself! don’t wander down a dark alleyway by yourself! for the love of GOD, don’t jump headfirst into dangerous situations of which you have NO KNOWLEDGE and NO WAY TO FIGHT YOUR WAY OUT BY YOURSELF!_

Mae didn’t miss that instinct, really. Not having it sure made life interesting.

So when Mae turned down that dark alley (by herself) to investigate that ominous sound she’d just heard (by herself) with no weapons and no hope for help if things got scary (BY HERSELF), she really only had herself to blame.

“Hello?” she called. It really was quite a dark alley.

Her shadow stretched out before her for the first few steps, squished and deformed like a child’s roll-out cookie, before vanishing completely. The illumination from the street lamps didn’t reach very far.

“Hello?” Mae said again, fingers tangling in her talisman necklace. She was eerily aware of the sound her soft purple moccasins made against the uneven cobblestones, eerily aware of how fragile her voice sounded against the thudding silence.

_Fragile, my ass,_  Mae thought to herself. _Just let someone try to underestimate_ this _damsel in distress._

She heard the ominous sound again. It was like a clang! clang! and then a _auhhhh._

_What is that?_

“Here, kitty kitty?” Mae called, tilting her head as she peered into the darkness.

There was movement and she spun.

Her eyes adjusted and – there!

Two people lay horizontally on the ground, one atop the other. They were wedged, strangely enough, between two metal trash bins. As Mae watched, the one on top – a dark-skinned man wearing a red vest, she know saw – bit down on the neck of the one beneath him – a woman with short blonde hair. The woman moaned and jolted into the bin. Clang! Clang! Auhhh.

“Oh,” Mae said. _Well, that’s not a kitty._

She was just beginning to back away when someone grabbed her from behind.

“Got her!”

The writhers jumped to their feet, panting and a bit flushed in the face.

Whoever was behind Mae had her arms crossed and held tight against her chest. Mae kicked wildly, and one of her moccasins flew off, slamming into a metal bin.

Clang!  
“Get – _off me!_ ” Mae bit out, struggling, throwing her body weight back and forth.

The person behind her – a woman, she thought, judging by the softness pressed against the back of her neck and the slenderness of the forearms imprisoning her – shouted, “Help me with her!”

The blonde woman rushed over and grabbed Mae around the middle. “Shouldn’t she be putting up more of a fight?” she asked.

Kicking with all her strength, Mae glared at the woman. “I’ll show _you_ more of a fight!”

She didn’t get a chance to, however, as the woman suddenly let go of her and stepped back.

“Wait –” the woman said, but she didn’t get a chance to do that, either, because someone sprung up and punched her in the face.

The same someone spun around and kicked the red-vested man in the throat as he tried to duck away down the alley.

“Johnson!” the woman holding Mae called out. She threw Mae to the ground and rushed to the man’s side.

Mae’s mysterious shadow-rescuer karate-chopped her in the back. She fell and lay motionless.

Mae sat on the ground, holding on to her ankle. She’d twisted it.

_What…?_ She thought. _I have no idea what’s going on._

The shadowy figure was moving its various victims about, searching through their jacket pockets.

“What are you doing, _robbing_ them? That’s not very superhero of you.”

The figure looked over at her. “What are you even doing here? Not that I’m complaining – you make a rather nice distraction.”

_That voice…_

“ _Sin?_ ”

Now that she was looking closer, she could see the lines of the other girl’s body, the flow of her dark hair, the shine of the necklace she wore around her throat.

“What? _What?_ What are _you_ doing here?”

Sin sighed and stood up from where she’d been manhandling the red-headed woman who must have been Mae’s captor.

“I’ve been following these idiots. They stole a bunch of things from the last market – a bunch of _my_ things – and I’ve been trying to get them back… They’ve mainly stayed out in the open since then, though, so I haven’t gotten a chance. They probably came down this alley to try to trap me.” Sin looked down at her collection of unconscious thieves. “Like I said. Idiots.”

Sin came over and reached a hand out to Mae.

“Here. Is your ankle okay?”

Mae grasped her hand. It was soft, narrower and longer than hers. She pulled herself up.

“I’ll live.”

They stood together, hands clasped, in the dark alley. Mae knew she should let go, but she’d made the mistake of looking into Sin’s eyes at close range and now she was distracted. Very distracted. She moved a little closer.

Sin reached out with her un-Mae-clasping hand and touched Mae’s cheek. “You’re all dirty.”

Sin moved a little closer.

Clang! Clang! Auhhh.

They jumped apart and turned toward the sound. The two women had regained consciousness and were groping and biting at each other, rolling between the trash bins. The red-headed woman was on top, her long curly hair hiding the face of the woman underneath her.

Mae glanced at Sin, confused, but Sin was distractedly staring at where the blonde’s hand disappeared beneath the red-head’s top.

Mae shoved her.

“What – oh,” Sin looked a bit embarrassed. “Sorry. I – uh.”

“Should we break them up?” Mae whispered, a little bit transfixed herself.

“Um, I guess so. Seems kind of a shame, though…” Sin took a step forward and then seemed to get distracted again.

A rush of movement behind her caused Mae to turn around.

“Hey! Wait!”

The man, clutching what looked like a garbage bag to his shiny red vest, ran away from them and the alley and disappeared into the street.

Sin spun around. “Damn it, there goes my stuff!” She sprinted after him.

When Mae looked back, the two women had vanished.

_I have to give it to them,_ she thought, standing alone in the dark alley. _That was a pretty damn fine distraction._


End file.
